The Supreme Court on Wednesday released a court ruling expanding exemptions for religious employers and insurance providers to not provide contraceptive coverage. MSNBC had to blow the decision up to massive proportions however, painting it as an attack against all women. MSNBC's idea of diversity to discuss this? A former head of Planned Parenthood, an ex-Democratic staffer and a former Democratic Senator. Diversity!
Dr. Kavita Patel, a former Ted Kennedy staffer, spoke first and said Trump went far and beyond to deny access to women more broadly.
The Trump administration went above and beyond often and created these conscientious objections, we call them conscience clauses which extended what I would say is an overreach by this administration to deny access to women.
But that was not the hottest take of the segment. Former Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) jumped into the action, making statements that are suddenly pro-life sounding for a Senator that had a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood.
And here's the weirdest thing about this. We know that unwanted pregnancies have dropped since the ACA passed. What everyone wants is fewer abortions. That's what the Republicans spent an inordinate amount of time about preventing abortions. What prevents abortions? Family planning prevents abortions, easy access to affordable birth control prevents abortions.
Now, in the own words of the Little Sisters of the Poor, the issue was not regular old birth control like McCaskill and Patel are trying to state. The real issue is the contraceptives that ObamaCare made these companies cover, abortifacients, or drugs that cause abortion. So the issue here is not preventing abortions like McCaskill claimed, it is keeping companies from having to pay for abortions in a pill, which is a position that these two guests support.
The vast majority of the employees serving religious companies would still get contraceptives that prevent pregnancy, just not Plan-B or contraceptives that stop pregnancies that are already in progress.
Turning up the heat even further and hysteria to the max, former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, who said:
This is a bad decision for women's health and I really want to pick up on what Senator McCaskill said. One of the biggest successes of the Affordable Care Act was coverage for 63 million women in this country, for birth control. And this essentially, now, takes away that commitment. We had a record low of teenage pregnancy, 30-year low for unintended pregnancy across the board. It is a very popular benefit and it crosses party lines, it crosses everything. This is a real unfortunate development for the health and safety of women.
It was an odd statement to make that the inability of some employees to force their employers to cover abortion pills jeopordizes their health and safety, but she still made it anyway.
If you asked normal women, they would probably tell you that they could purchase emergency contraceptives for about $50 and some of them have done so before. But if you ask the elitist leftists on MSNBC, they would say you are endangering women’s health.
Google decided to sponsor this leftist misinformation.
Read the full transcript below to learn more.
MSNBC’s Live with Hallie Jackson
7-8-20
10:19 AM
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: Pete Williams breaking news there, Supreme Court, siding with the Trump administration in allowing religious employers to deny contraceptive coverage. Thank you for that. We want to continue the conversation on this decision with NBC's Kara Lee, also here Dr. Kavita Patel who served under President Obama, now an MSNBC medical contributor, Cecil Richards, former President of Planned Parenthood and former Missouri Senator Claire Mccaskill and MSNBC political analyst. Dr. Patel, your reaction to this, since you served in the Obama administration on this front. What do you make of this decision?
KAVITA PATEL: It is disappointing for a number of reasons, not just because of the problems that many women and families will have with access, but frankly speaking, this was already dealt with, the Obama administration had provided and made efforts mandated by the courts in a number of rulings to accommodate religious organizations. The Trump administration went above and beyond often and created these conscientious objections, we call them conscience clauses which extended what I would say is an overreach by this administration to deny access to women. You can tell the justices seemed like they were hoping there could be some solutions that were outside of the Supreme Court but here we are today and hopefully we can find another battle for expanding the very accesses, one as you mentioned, many things that the Trump administration has completely torn down. And hopefully we can change that direction soon. It is disappointing on a healthcare front.
MOHYELDIN: Senator Mccaskill, curious to get your thoughts. Let me read you a line part of the oral arguments attributed to Justice Ginsburg who we now as we understand based on that vote that Pete was talking about was one of the two dissenting votes with Justice Sotomayor. “This would leave women to hunt for other government programs that might cover them.” This was in response to the government's argument that women could seek contraceptive coverage from somewhere other than their employer and thus are themselves not unfairly burdened by this rule. As we heard there, it is going to leave 126,000 women who work in companies out of -- out on their own, so to speak.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: Yeah. And, you know, what we need to focus on here is what this decision says is in America you might have to ask your boss permission to get birth control covered in your health insurance. And that is just fundamentally wrong. And here's the weirdest thing about this. We know that unwanted pregnancies have dropped since the ACA passed. What everyone wants is fewer abortions. That's what the Republicans spent an inordinate amount of time about preventing abortions. What prevents abortions? Family planning prevents abortions, easy access to affordable birth control prevents abortions. So what they really have done here is put another step in a process for women to easily get birth control and frankly politically they probably have given more weight to the idea that we need a public option for people. They shouldn't have to ask their boss whether or not their insurance would pay for their pill. That's not right. And we need to have a different system where people can opt into a public system where they can easily get birth control access. Family planning access.
MOHYELDIN: Cecil Richards, the health of women and the religious liberty interests of employers and universities could be met under the provisions that already existed in Obamacare. The Supreme Court, though, today with this decision is arguing that's not the case. There was an undue burden being put on employers and their religious liberty. At the expense, though by so, on women's health.
CECIL RICHARDS: Right. This is a bad decision for women's health and I really want to pick up on what Senator McCaskill said. One of the biggest successes of the Affordable Care Act was coverage for 63 million women in this country, for birth control. And this essentially, now, takes away that commitment. We had a record low of teenage pregnancy, 30-year low for unintended pregnancy across the board. It is a very popular benefit and it crosses party lines, it crosses everything. This is a real unfortunate development for the health and safety of women. I actually think I want to put a different spin on it politically. I think it only serves to reinforce that this administration has done everything they can to eliminate healthcare access and particularly for women, we know they tried to get rid of maternity benefits. I think this decision and women understanding they just lost a benefit and as Claire said their boss can now determine whether they can get birth control, that's going to energize women even more. And they're already the most energized group of voters in the country.
